Of the consensus pantheon of great film directors, the films of the Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968), were until the last year the hardest to see, even for someone living where there are repertory film theaters. (The films of Robert Bresson and Satyajit Ray are also frustratingly rarely screened, but I've seen retrospectives of their films.) Until last Halloween, the only Dreyer film I'd seen was "The Passion of Joan of Arc." the 1928 silent film with the mesmerizing Joan of Falconetti (and the intriguing presence in the cast of Antonin Artaud). On Halloween, I saw a not-very-good print of "Vampyr" (1932) on a double-feature with Murnau's "Nosferatu" and found "Vampyr" not only less striking but quite boring. Earlier this year, I tried to watch Dreyer's last film, "Gertrud" (1964), the most visually static film I can remember (not having seen Andy Warhol's "Sleep"). Although it is very talky, being adapted from a stage-play, the characters literally talk past each other, not looking at each other. It seemed to me finally to provide an example of a film about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Having been knocked out in a good way by "Joan of Arc" and put under by "Gertrud" (and underwhelmed by "Vampyr"), I approached the certified classic "Vredens dag" (Day of Wrath) with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. Although I could not say that I enjoyed "Vredens dag," I am not going to challenge its place in the canon of international film classics. It is not visually static like "Gertrud." Indeed, there is more camera movement than in "Joan of Arc"... and less tight and fewer close-ups.

Both "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and "Vredens dag" show hypocritical male "spiritual leaders" condemning to death women on charges that seem fanciful to modern audiences, though it was claims of divine inspiration for Joan, burned in Rouen in 1431, and attributions of trucking with the devil for women in 1623 Denmark burned as witches. Joan's threat to male authority is relatively straightforward, but those burned as witches were often not strong women posing a threat to male authority. Herlof's Marthe (Anna Svierkier), the one who is hunted down at the start of "Vredens dag" is not imaginably a threat. Sexually and in every other way, she is a nonentity, though another woman is "guilty" of autonomous sexual choice.

Herlof's Marthe begs Anne (Lisbeth Movin), the young wife of the dour Reverend Absalon Pedersson (Thorkild Roose) to hide her, making the first intimations that the rector had saved Anne's mother from being burned at the stake. Anne agrees but Marthe is found and hauled off to a Lutheran witch tribunal. Marthe is not frightened of eternal damnation but of being killed and makes a more explicit claim for protection of the Rev. Pedersson. He does not save her and before her grisly death she curses him and his her judge.

Plot Spoiler Alert

The judge soon dies. Whether because of the curse or because of the Rev. Pedersson's various sins (protecting Anne's mother and taking Anne as his wife without her consent), Anne falls in love with her stepson Martin (Preben Lerdorff) who has just returned, despite the hostility and suspicions of her mother-in-law, Meret (Sigrid Neiiendam). Their affair begins while the Rev. Pedersson is at the judge's deathbed. The "guilty pleasures" or Anne and Martin are longer on guilt than on pleasure. There is no joy and, visually, the love affair scenes are as dark as the scenes of witch tribunals. Soon, there is a confrontation in which Anne tells her husband she has never loved him and has often wished for his death.

When Meret accuses Anne of witchcraft (bewitching Martin, getting the devil to remove the obstacle of her husband), Martin does not verbally concur but literally stands with his grandmother rather than with his mistress. Without any supporters, she confesses to being a witch.

Interpreting Anne's confession is complicated by Dreyer's apparent puritanism and by the circumstances in which the film was made. That it was shot in 1943 and not shown outside Denmark until after the Nazi occupation makes the viewer (at least this one) look for links to the torture-derived confessions the Nazis extracted, and I know that some see the film as an allegory of despotic power. Unlike Herlof's Marthe, who seemingly dabbled in conjuring Satan and who had to be tortured to obtain a confession, there is no indication Anne dabbled in the black arts, and she confesses with only the charges from a mother-in-law whom everyone in the inquisitorial hierarchy must have known despised the unsuitably young woman. Herlof's Marthe was weak and frightened; until her confession Anne had been defiant in taking what (whom) she wanted. She has not seemed so wracked by guilt that she crumbles at a few words from her antagonist of longstanding. Well, she doesn't really crumble. She remains standing and clear-eyed, but has thrown herself into the flames of being burned as a witch. This is to say that I find the motivation underdeveloped. And the wife taking up with a stepson of approximately her own age seems close to being a cliché.

Ultimately, the film strikes me as focused on the history of persecution of women (particularly sexually active ones like Anne) and not a covert portrait of the Nazi occupation of the land of my mother's ancestors.

End Plot Spoiler Alert

Visually, both in composition of each frame and in camera pans, "Vredens dag" is very striking: credit cinematographer Karl Andersson for the chiaroscuro images. With the black gowns and white starched collars, most scenes look like some of the darker Dutch master painters of the 17th century. The torture of the stubbornly resisting Herlof's Marthe and, especially, lifting her on her stake into the fire sear the viewer. The inquisitors look plenty scary to me. And Lisbeth Movin's eyes are almost as expressive as Falconetti's Joan (maybe if she had as many closeups...)

For me, the weak link in the cast is Preben Lerdorff's Martin, but in that his part requires him to be cowed first by his father, then by his stepmother, then by his grandmother, perhaps it is just that he plays his role well.

The music, variations on a Gregorian chant of the Dies Irae (day of wrath) is haunting/haunted and subtle.

So, OK, it's a great film with stunning performances and visuals. It's also so bleak that it strikes me as more of a horror film than "Vampyr." Overall, the pacing seems slow, though the youthful romance is underdeveloped and at least to me the finale is undermotivated. I'm not in any hurry to see "Ordet" (1955), which has been reproduced on DVD in a multi-disk pack with "Vredens dag" and "Gertrud" and a documentary about Dreyer. (Some interview footage of the young leads of "Vredens dag" is included on the "Vredens dag" DVD.)


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age